Craxi Presents New Italian Cabinet Drawn From Same Coalition

Socialist Prime Minister Bettino Craxi on Friday resurrected the same five-party coalition that collapsed five weeks ago and formally presented to President Francesco Cossiga a Cabinet list of Italy’s 45th government since World War II.

“It is a good government, and I hope very quickly to obtain confidence votes in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate so that it can resume its work,” the 52-year-old leader said.

Craxi’s former coalition government collapsed June 27 after 70 parliamentary deputies of his coalition parties turned against him in a secret vote on a finance decree. At 34 months, it was the longest-lasting government since World War II.

Forced Into Agreement

To restructure the coalition with himself at the top, Craxi was forced into an agreement with his leading coalition partner, the dominant Christian Democratic Party, to surrender the prime minister’s office to a Christian Democrat by March, 1987. The Socialist leader said he will step down then to devote full time to gearing up his own party for general elections in 1988.

The new Craxi Cabinet is almost a carbon copy of the last one, with only eight changes, most of which involved simply swapping portfolios among relatively unimportant ministries. The most important changes were at Justice, where former Interior Minister Virgilio Rognoni replaced Fermo Mino Martinazzoli, and at Health, where Sen. Carlo Donat-Cattin replaced Costante Degan.

Giulio Andreotti, the Christian Democrat foreign minister, remained at his post, as did Giovanni Spadolini, the Republican minister of defense.

The party structure of the 30-member Cabinet remained the same with 16 Christian Democrats, six Socialists, three Social Democrats, three Republicans and two Liberals.

Craxi was expected to present his new government to the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate for a vote of confidence Tuesday, a day after what would have been the third anniversary of his first government.

The crisis was by no means one of the longest in the tortured history of postwar Italian politics. The record of 126 days reached in 1979 has yet to be surpassed.

But Christian Democratic leader Ciriaco de Mita said it had been the most difficult and one that the Italian public had failed to comprehend.

‘We Are All Beaten’

Asked who were the winners, and who the losers in the agreement, de Mita told journalists: “We are all beaten. It is the political system that has lost out.”

But the news of the formal end of the crisis, which in practical terms ended last week when Craxi agreed to Christian Democrat demands that he step down next March, was received with indifference by many Italians. Television reported the news matter-of-factly, after running an item on the millions who began their annual August holiday Friday.